Lucy Butler,15, getting ready to have her measles jab at All Saints School in Ingleby Barwick, Teesside as a national vaccination catch-up campaign has been launched to curb a rise in measles cases in England. PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Thursday April 25, 2013. See PA story HEALTH Measles. Photo credit should read: Owen Humphreys/PA Wire
Parents across Scotland are being urged to make sure their children have up to date vaccinations in the wake of the measles outbreak in England and Wales.
Almost 1,000 cases of measles have been reported across Wales and England this year and health officials at the Scottish Government have encouraged families north of the border to ensure that their children have received vaccinations against the infection.
Eighty people have now needed hospital treatment since November and more than 10,000 people across Wales have been given a triple jab against measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) in the last seven days as health authorities continue efforts to bring the epidemic under control.
The outbreak has been put down to the historic widespread fear that developed following the release of a now discredited report in 1998 that linked the MMR jab and autism.
All unvaccinated or partially vaccinated Scots aged between 10 and 17 years old are now to be offered the MMR vaccine in a preemptive move by the government to make sure the epidemic does not take effect here.
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